Compress PDF to a Size
Say how big the file is allowed to be — 2 MB, 500 KB — and it encodes repeatedly until it lands just under, or tells you the target is impossible.
Processed on your device — no upload
How to compress PDF to a size
- Choose the PDF.
- Type the size it has to fit under — 2 MB, 500 KB, whatever you were told.
- Press fit. It encodes repeatedly until it lands just under.
How it works
Nobody wants a quality setting. An email bounced, or a form refused the upload, and what you were given is a number: under 2 MB. A slider marked 70 does not answer that — so you export, check, lower it, export again. That loop is what this does instead, and it does it properly: a binary search over quality, then over resolution if quality alone cannot get there.
It aims to land just under, not far under. A tool that hands back 300 KB when 2 MB was allowed has thrown away detail for nothing. The search keeps the largest result that fits, so you spend the whole allowance and keep everything it buys you.
Why nobody else offers this. Reaching a specific size means encoding the document eight or more times. On a server that is processing billed per visitor, which is precisely why the free tools give you a slider and let you do the loop by hand. Here the work happens on your own machine, so the expensive answer costs nothing to give.
The same fact removes the other limit. There is no upload, so there is no upload cap — a 300 MB scan is a slower search, not a rejection.
What it can and cannot reach. The size of a scanned document is its images, and those it can work on. The size of a typed report is text, fonts and structure, and no compressor touches those. If your target is below that floor the tool says so and hands back the smallest it actually reached, rather than something unreadable with a green tick on it.
Text stays text throughout. The pages are never rasterised, so selection, search and screen readers keep working — which is the failure mode of every compressor that reaches a target by turning the document into pictures.
A worked example
A university portal accepts applications up to 2 MB. Your scanned transcript is 11.4 MB, because the scanner was set to 300 dpi in colour and nobody ever changes that.
Choose the file, press 2 MB, press fit. The progress line reports each attempt — quality 95 gives 9.8 MB, quality 30 gives 3.1 MB, so it drops the resolution and tries again. Six attempts later it stops at 1.9 MB.
Not 400 KB. The portal allows two megabytes and the transcript uses them, so the registrar reading it can still make out the module codes.
The opposite case is worth seeing too. Feed it a 40-page contract — text, no scans — and ask for 200 KB. It will tell you the document has no re-encodable images and that 580 KB is what it is. That is a more useful answer than a file that meets the number and cannot be read.
Questions
How do I compress a PDF to 2 MB exactly?
Type 2 MB and press fit. The tool encodes the document at several quality settings, and at reduced resolution if it has to, keeping the largest result that comes in under your figure. You will usually land between 1.8 and 2 MB — under the limit, using as much of it as possible.
How do I reduce a PDF to 500 KB or 200 KB?
The same way — type the figure. Smaller targets need more aggressive settings, and below a certain point a scanned document stops being legible. The tool will tell you when the target is not reachable rather than producing something you cannot read.
Why can’t my PDF get under the size I asked for?
Because its weight is not images. A typed document is text, fonts and structure, and compression works on the pictures inside a file. If there are no re-encodable images, the size is what it is — splitting the document is usually the better answer.
Is there a file size limit?
No. Nothing is uploaded, so there is no upload cap to hit. A very large scan takes longer to search because each attempt re-encodes every image, but it is a wait rather than a refusal.
Does the text stay selectable?
Yes. The pages are never converted to images. That is the shortcut most compressors take to hit a target, and it silently destroys search, selection and screen-reader access — so it is worth testing on any tool you use: compress a typed page and try to select a word in the result.
Is my document uploaded to compress it?
No. The site is static files with no backend, and the whole search runs in this tab. Open your network tab and run it — the document never appears in a request, which is also why there is no size limit.
Is Compress PDF to a Size free to use online?
Yes — free, with no account, no daily limit and no watermark. It runs online in your browser, and because the work happens on your own device it keeps working offline once the page has loaded.